Burj Khalifa

When we lived in Dhahran we would take short trips to either across the causeway to Bahrain, or across the peninsula to the Red Sea to go diving. We never went to UAE. It has only been in the last couple of years that Traveling Blonde 1 and I have traveled here.  Our dad, who hasn't left the US since he retired, hadn't been so we decided to make a quick stop here before we head home to KSA.

I went to the top of Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, my first time in Dubai, but it was much more fun to go with my civil engineering dad. It's one thing to learn about how it was built and how big it is; it's totally different to have him translate the facts into something comprehendable. 

Fun fact: The Burj (Tower) Khalifa is 163 floors (the building I work in is tall at 22 floors) and has square footage equivalent to about 1000 houses of 3000 sq ft each. 

Fun fact: It draws 36 megawatts (which means nothing to me), in comparison, all of Shaybah runs on 3 megawatts. 

Fun fact: Most buildings are only reinforced concrete for the first 10 floors. The Burj Khalifa is reinforced concrete for all but the last 40 floors, where it switches to structural steel. That really impressed my dad, apparently that's pretty cool engineering, but what that means is that even on really windy days you still don't feel the building sway even on the 124th floor observatory deck.